<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>Take It Out On Me by Kittenshift17</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28404870">Take It Out On Me</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kittenshift17/pseuds/Kittenshift17'>Kittenshift17</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Best Friends, Blood, Broken nose, Fighting, Friendship, M/M, Violence, What are friends for?, bros, referenced child abuse if you squint</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 16:40:53</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,730</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28404870</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kittenshift17/pseuds/Kittenshift17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes the people we love the most are the only ones we feel safe taking our emotions out on.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Sirius Black/James Potter</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>53</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Take It Out On Me</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Sirius Black scowled when he received the Howler from home, screaming about what a disappointment he was and how wretched he surely must be. <em>No son of hers</em>, she’d screamed. He clenched his fists and looked away, his cheeks flushing with anger as he stalked out of the Great Hall.</p><p>James went after him, running to catch up, stopping him with a hand on his shoulder.</p><p>“You alright, mate?” he asked in a low voice when Sirius refused to look at him.</p><p>“I hate them,” Sirius hissed. “I hate them <em>all</em>! Twisted, sycophantic zealots, the lot of them!”</p><p>James tugged on his shoulder dragging him down the corridor and into an empty classroom, so no one would see that Sirius was upset.</p><p>“You want to talk about it?” he offered, fishing a Sugar Mouse from his pocket and handing it to his best friend.</p><p>“No,” Sirius grunted. “I just want that fucking hag to die!”</p><p>James nodded, though he could never imagine wishing death upon his own mother.</p><p>“You want to duel?” he offered. “Maybe flinging a few hexes will help?”</p><p>“I don’t want to take my temper out on you, James,” Sirius said, glancing over at him with a sharp frown as he bit the head off the Sugar Mouse.</p><p>“What are friends for, you toss-pot?” James laughed. “Come on, you can’t go to Charms with magic crackling through your hair like that. It’ll end up standing up all over the place, like mine.”</p><p>Sirius scowled all the more.</p><p>“Fine,” he muttered. “But don’t whine when I don’t fight fair.”</p><p>“Shut up, Sirius,” James said, pulling out his wand and dropping his bag by the door before squaring off. “I’ll wipe the floor with you, as usual. Just because you’re throwing a tantrum doesn’t mean you’re going to beat me, mate.”</p><p>“Tantrum this, fucker,” Sirius hissed, flinging a tickling jinx at his best friend.</p><p>James blocked it easily, returning fire with a Jelly Legs jinx. Sirius blocked that, and soon they were dodging hexes, testing their power and flinging curses back and forth. When James managed to get a <em>Ferniculous</em> charm past Sirius’s shield, Sirius roared in fury, flinging his wand aside and charging James.</p><p>Ready for a fistfight, James threw a punch at his best friend, his knuckles crunching for his trouble before Sirius tackled him to the floor. James went down swinging, taking a punch to the jaw and a jab to the ribs before he had the wind knocked out of him thanks to Sirius landing on top of him. The other boy straddled him and began slinging more punches, his face screwed up with fury.</p><p>James blocked a few of the blows with his arms, swinging back and bloodying Sirius’s lip but letting a few of Sirius’s hits through. He knew how cathartic it could be to beat the shit out of someone. His glasses cracked, and James groaned when Sirius broke his nose before the angry boy roared in frustration, throwing one more punch at James’s jaw before resorting to beating his fists against James’s chest as the rage that hid his hurt feelings over his parents’ hatred bled out through his tear-ducts.</p><p>He struggled angrily when he began to sob, and James put his arms around his best friend.</p><p>“They’re twats, Sirius,” James crooned to him softly, even though the words sounded garbled thanks to his broken nose, fat lip, and a bruised jaw. “They don’t fucking deserve you, mate. You’re better than them and they can’t stand it, so they keep trying to pull you back down to their level. Don’t let them. I’m your family, yeah? Me and Remus and Peter. You’ll spend holidays with me and you won’t have to see them again if you want.”</p><p>“I can’t just not go home,” Sirius sniffled, shuffling against him when James squirmed underneath him, sitting up enough to lean against one of the desk legs with Sirius still in his lap.</p><p>Only eleven years old, James didn’t know what to tell him. Sirius would likely have to go back home in the summer and see his rotten family and let them berate him and hiss at him for being a failure and a disappointment because he dared to rise above blood prejudice. There wasn’t anything he could really do, yet, to keep Sirius from having to go home, and no matter how wretched the twisted bastards were, they were still Sirius’s family.</p><p>“One day, you’ll be able to make a home with me, yeah? We’re probably too young right now to logically and permanently run-away, but when we’re a bit older, you can come live with me and you’ll never have to see them again.”</p><p>“Why can’t they just love me?” Sirius breathed into his neck, still sniffling, his hands clenched in the front of James’s robes as he clung to him.</p><p>“Mum says that some people can’t see past the end of their noses,” James offered.</p><p>“What’s that mean?” Sirius asked.</p><p>“Dad reckons it means that some people think their shit doesn’t stink, even while they sneer at everyone else over the stink of theirs.”</p><p>Sirius snorted just a little.</p><p>“Your Dad sounds fun,” Sirius said. “Better than mine. Mine just lets that fucking harpy nag and hiss and snarl over how much everyone else has let her down and how much better she thinks she is to everyone else. He doesn’t stop her when she hurts me or Regulus. He just stands there, impassive.”</p><p>James hugged his best mate tighter.</p><p>“Yeah, well,” James said. “You’ve got me now, yeah? When they piss you off, take it out on me. When you want to scream or cry or hex someone, you’ve got me.”</p><p>Sirius pulled back to look at him through puffy, red-rimmed eyes and James tried to smile at him, though he feared it was more like a bloodstained grimace.</p><p>“Bloody hell, James,” Sirius said, his eyes widening when he saw the damage he’d done. “I’m sorry.”</p><p>James shrugged, pretending it didn’t hurt to keep Sirius from feeling worse.</p><p>“I’ll be alright. Bit of magic will clear all of this up,” James promised.</p><p>“Bloody hell, we need to get you to the nurse. I’m so sorry,” Sirius said, scrambling off his lap and offering him a hand up.</p><p>“You’re pretty banged up yourself, Sirius,” James told him, wiping at his broken nose with his handkerchief, trying to stem the bleeding. “Got a nasty cut in your eyebrow, and I split your lip, there.”</p><p>James nodded at Sirius’s battered face.</p><p>“Pomfrey will have a fit if she sees us,” Sirius said.</p><p>“Know any healing spells?” James asked, raising one eyebrow though doing so hurt.</p><p>“I can mend the break in your nose. I’m no good with cuts and blood, but I learned how to fix bones long before I escaped that hell-hole,” Sirius offered.</p><p>James didn’t ask how he’d learned to heal broken bones before he’d even gotten his wand. He probably didn’t want to know.</p><p>“<em>Episky</em>,” Sirius muttered, tracing a gentle finger down the bridge of James’s nose. James grunted when it made a little crunching sound as the cartilage pulled back together.</p><p>“Fuck!” James groaned when the mend sent a thrum of pain radiating through his entire face.</p><p>“We better wash up,” Sirius said. “You alright?”</p><p>“I’ll be fine,” James nodded. “Come on, there’s a loo down the hall. Don’t want anyone to know we’ve been beating the shit out of each other, eh?”</p><p>He tugged on the front of Sirius’s robes before grabbing his bag and leading the way out of the otherwise classroom. In the washroom, they both watched their faces, Sirius taking a little longer with his face submerged in the sink-full of icy water, obviously hoping to negate the red rims around his eyes, trying to hide the evidence that he’d been crying.</p><p>James scrubbed the blood from his face, wincing when he spied the rapidly darkening bruises on both of his eyes. He flicked his wand to repair his glasses and squinted at the puffiness of his lip. He had a lump on his jaw, too, which ached a bit, but all in all, he was alright.</p><p>“I’m sorry,” Sirius whispered when James turned away from the mirror, drying his face on his sleeve and glancing at the other boy.</p><p>Sirius winced when he saw the bruises forming under James’s eyes. “I think I’ve got some bruise salve in my trunk,” he offered. “I’ll put it on you after class if you want?”</p><p>James nodded, smiling bravely.</p><p>“You alright?” he asked his best friend quietly.</p><p>Sirius nodded, his jaw clenching and unclenching for a moment. He looked away, his cheeks turning pink as though embarrassed about crying, and about beating him up. James opened his mouth to assure him that everything would be alright, that he had his back, no matter what. Before he could utter a single word, Sirius stepped closer and snaked both arms around his chest.</p><p>Despite being slightly taller, the long-haired boy burrowed into James’s chest, hugging him tightly and surprising James just a bit. Chuckling, James looped his arms around Sirius’s body, hugging him fiercely in return.</p><p>“Come on,” James murmured quietly, resting his chin on Sirius’s shoulder. “We better get to class before Professor Flitwick comes looking for us. They’ll ask enough questions when they see the state of us, as it is.”</p><p>Sirius nodded, clinging to him for a few minutes more until James ruffled his hand through the other boy’s dark hair. When he did, Sirius pulled back, his eyes narrowed.</p><p>“Paws off the hair, yeah?” he said sternly.</p><p>James grinned.</p><p>“Or what, eh?” James taunted, carding his fingers through the silky black tresses that Sirius so carefully styled and combed each day.</p><p>“Or I’ll end up looking like you,” Sirius said. “And I don’t fancy looking like someone zapped with me a Static spell. I actually <em>like</em> looking this good, you know?”</p><p>“Are you saying I look like shit?” James laughed.</p><p>“Please, Potter,” Sirius rolled his eyes. “Looking like shit would be a step up, for you.”</p><p>“Right, that’s it!” James said, laughing as he went for a playful kidney jab. Sirius grunted at the impact, returning fire with an elbow to the ribs.</p><p>They were still scuffling when the stumbled into Charms, laughing and taunting each other, the Howler from Sirius mother long forgotten.</p>
  </div></div>
</body>
</html>